In The Green Years, 1964–1976, Gregg Coodley and David Sarasohn offer the first comprehensive history of the period when the United States created the legislative, legal, and administrative structures for environmental protection that are still in place over fifty years later. Coodley and Sarasohn tell a dramatic story of cultural change, grassroots activism, and political leadership that led to the passage of a host of laws attacking pollution under President Johnson. At the same time, with Stewart Udall as secretary of the interior, the Wilderness Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and other land-protection measures were passed and the department shifted its focus from western resource development to broader national conservation issues. The magnitude of what was accomplished was without precedent, even under conservation-minded presidents like the two Roosevelts. The fast-paced story the authors tell is not only about the Democratic Party; in this era there was still a vital Republican conservation tradition. In the 1960s, Republicans were chronologically as close to Teddy Roosevelt as to Donald Trump. In both the House and Senate and in the Nixon and Ford administrations, Republicans played vital roles. It was President Nixon who established the Environmental Protection Agency and signed into law the 1970 Clean Air Act, revisions in 1972 to the Clean Water Act, and the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Under Nixon, actions were taken to protect the oceans, forests, coastal zones, and grasslands while regulating chemicals, pesticides, and garbage. The authors analyze the full range of transformations during the “Green Years,” from the creation of entirely new pollution-control industries to backpacking becoming mass recreation to how revelations about chemical exposure spurred the natural food movement. And not least, the tectonic shift in the political landscape of the United States with the western states becoming Republican bastions and centers of ongoing backlash against the federal government. The Green Years, 1964–1976 is the story of environmental progress in the midst of war and civil unrest, and of the lessons we can learn for our future.

The Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) is not only a stunning piece of land—the first large national park created from all private lands and the first large park adjacent a major metropolitan center—but the fight to save this fragile ecosystem in the 1960s was a key turning point in the environmental movement and helped transform the political landscape of California and the nation. Saving Point Reyes is an environmental policy history that draws on archival materials, oral histories, and new interviews with veteran federal policymakers to understand how legislative bargaining and grassroots politics succeeded in achieving this victory for environmental protection. Gerald Warburg offers the first political history focused on the battles to preserve the unique series of fragile ecosystems that surround San Francisco and the definitive study of exactly how Point Reyes was saved. Most accounts of this story only focus on the 1962 bill that created the PRNS on 53,000 acres of private lands just north of San Francisco. But that was just the first act in the saga. The passing of the bill only established the park in theory, and the government only controlled 123 acres at Point Reyes. In the months following the signing ceremony, all three of the House, Senate, and White House champions of the Point Reyes legislation died, leaving the PRNS without the leadership necessary to secure the funding to purchase the rest of the land. What followed was an epic public policy battle to save Point Reyes. Local grassroots lobbying organizations arose to advance the cause of PRNS and other environmental campaigns, and their victory in 1970 laid the foundation for future environmental activism. With this new funding, the PRNS expanded to over 71,000 acres, which then grew to 87,000 acres in 1972 with the creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The legislative bargaining and grassroots politics in the fight to preserve Point Reyes helped create a tipping point, profoundly altering the national environmental movement. Warburg’s deeply researched case study of NGO activism and congressional action is developed through a compelling narrative that offers specific lessons learned and hope for future environmental challenges, from climate policy to public lands preservation.

“I have read at least 20 books a year for the past 25 years and Small Farm Republic is absolutely one of the very best that I have ever read. . . A must-read not only for those involved in all facets of agriculture but policy makers and consumers as well.”—Gabe Brown, regenerative rancher, author of Dirt to Soil From farmer, lawyer, and political activist John Klar comes a bold, solutions-based plan for Conservatives that gets beyond the fatuous pipe dreams and social-justice platitudes of the dominant, Liberal “Green” agenda—offering a healthy way forward for everyone. While many on the Left have taken up the mantle of creating a “green” future through climate alarmism, spurious new energy sources, and technocratic control, many on the Right continue to deny imminent environmental threats while pushing for unbridled deregulation of our most destructive industrial forces. Neither approach promises a bright future. In a time of soil degradation, runaway pollution, food insecurity, and declining human health, the stakes couldn’t be higher, and yet the dominant political voices too often overlook the last best hope for our planet—supporting small, regenerative farmers. In fact, politicians on all sides continue to sell out the interests of small farmers to the devastating power of Big Ag and failed “renewable energy” incentives. It’s time for a new vision. It’s time for bold new agriculture policies that restore both ecosystems and rural communities. In Small Farm Republic, John Klar, an agrarian conservative in the mold of Wendell Berry and Joel Salatin, offers an alternative that puts small farmers, regenerative agriculture, and personal liberty at the center of an environmental revival—a message that everyone on the political spectrum needs to hear.

Landmark Legislation 1774-2022, Third Edition is a comprehensive guide to important laws and treaties enacted by the U.S. Congress. This updated edition includes landmark legislation from the last five Congresses (2013-2022) on issues like climate change, criminal justice, education, and more. It features carefully selected acts and treaties with historical significance and has an updated index and bibliography for easy access. A must-have for public and academic libraries with American history or political science collections.

National parks are widely revered as “America’s best idea”—they are abundantly popular and remarkably noncontroversial in the United States. American presidents use these parks to stake their claims to environmentalism, assert a singular national history, and define a unified national identity, often doing so inside the parks themselves. However, the establishment and history of almost every national park has been riddled with conflict over competing claims to land, knowledge, and economic interests. Like any major area of public policy, the fissures present in debates over the national parks also represent important fracture lines in the public understanding of the meaning of America and of individual claims to citizenship. The park system, in other words, does a lot of political work for both presidents and the mass public, even though much of that work goes largely unnoticed. This book explores that political work by addressing themes of national origins and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples; monuments to the national past, heritage, and the assertion of a national narrative; environmentalism and natural resources; and exploitation of the national landscape for economic gain. In For the Enjoyment of the People, Mary Stuckey looks at the politics of the parks as well as what the parks can teach us about citizenship and what it means to be American. Stuckey asserts that through the national parks we can hope to explain the past, clarify the present, and project the future. Combining interdisciplinary conversations about tourism, public memory, national history, park history, the presidency, and national identity, Stuckey contributes insightful ideas to the conversation on the history of national parks while examining the natural, military, and patriotic nature of America’s best idea.

A wealthy textile titan from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Frank Masland Jr. was an ardent political conservative and an equally fervent conservationist who was well known and highly respected in the mid-twentieth-century environmental preservation community. This eye-opening biography charts Masland’s life work, telling the story of how he and fellow Republicans worked with Democrats to expand the national park system, preserve wild country, and protect the environment. Though a conservative conservationist appears to be a contradiction in terms today, this was not necessarily the case when Masland and his compatriots held sway. Conservatives, Masland insisted, had a duty to be good stewards of the earth for present and future generations, and they worked closely with members of both parties in Congress and nonpolitical conservation groups to produce landmark achievements. When conservatives turned against environmentalism during the Reagan presidency, Masland refused to join what historians have termed the “Republican reversal.” During his long life of nearly a hundred years, Masland used his voice, influence, experiences with nature, and considerable wealth to champion environmental causes at the national, state, and local levels. Engaging, informative, and at times eyebrow-raising, this portrait of a passionately anti-statist nature-loving Republican environmentalist documents the history of the twentieth-century conservation movement and reminds us of a time when conservative Republicans could work with liberal Democrats to protect the environment.

This book examines the potential for cities, states and regions to take decisive action on climate change at the local level. Local action constitutes an essential component of global efforts to keep temperatures below the 2°C Paris Agreement threshold. Focusing on three green municipal leaders - New York, Boston and Paris - this volume examines their multilevel interactions with higher governance echelons in the United States and France. Even though these countries are located on different continents, similar patterns emerge on both sides of the Atlantic. This book explores the key role of municipalities and sub-state entities in shaping the climate policy agenda vis-à-vis national governments in the US and France. It argues that inadequate articulation of multilevel governance may jeopardize efforts to limit global temperature increase below the 2°C threshold by the end of the century.

Americans flocked to the movies in 1945 and 1946ùthe center point of the three-decade heyday of the studio system's sound era. Why? Best Years is a panoramic study, shining light on this critical juncture in American historyand the history of American cinemaùthe end of World War II (1945) and a year of unprecedented success in Hollywood's "Golden Age" (1946). This unique time, the last year of war and the first full year of peace, provides a rich blend of cinema genres and typesùfrom the battlefront to the home front, the peace film to the woman's film, psychological drama, and the period's provocative new style, film noir. Best Years focuses on films that were famous, infamous, forgotten, and unforgettable. Big budget A-films, road shows, and familiar series share the spotlight. From Bergman and Grant in Notorious to Abbott and Costello in Lost in a Harem, Charles Affron and Mirella Jona Affron examine why the bond between screen and viewer was perhaps never tighter. Paying special attention to the movie-going public in key cities--Atlanta, New York, Boston, Honolulu, and Chicago--this ambitious work takes us on a cinematic journey to recapture a magical time.

A continuation of 1994’s groundbreaking Cartoons, Giannalberto Bendazzi’s Animation: A World History is the largest, deepest, most comprehensive text of its kind, based on the idea that animation is an art form that deserves its own place in scholarship. Bendazzi delves beyond just Disney, offering readers glimpses into the animation of Russia, Africa, Latin America, and other often-neglected areas and introducing over fifty previously undiscovered artists. Full of first-hand, never before investigated, and elsewhere unavailable information, Animation: A World History encompasses the history of animation production on every continent over the span of three centuries. Volume II delves into the decades following the Golden Age, an uncertain time when television series were overshadowing feature films, art was heavily influenced by the Cold War, and new technologies began to emerge that threatened the traditional methods of animation. Take part in the turmoil of the 1950s through 90s as American animation began to lose its momentum and the advent of television created a global interest in the art form. With a wealth of new research, hundreds of photographs and film stills, and an easy-to-navigate organization, this book is essential reading for all serious students of animation history. Key Features Over 200 high quality head shots and film stills to add visual reference to your research Detailed information on hundreds of never-before researched animators and films Coverage of animation from more than 90 countries and every major region of the world Chronological and geographical organization for quick access to the information you’re looking for